Saturday, May 31, 2008

blah blah burnout

So I finally took a night off after probably 50+ days of consecutive boozing.

It was not fun. Not only do other people like me more when I'm drunk, I like myself more, and I like everything more. Whaddyado? I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to take one more night off because my body hurts, and then I'm going to go back to the boozeness. Until you think of something better, let me know. I don't mean to sound depressing, but that's just the way it is. Like my friend Jen used to say, "I'm not a bitch. I'm just being honest."

This is how I feel when I'm drinking: "I love you, I love me, and I love life. You're a cock, but that's okay. I don't care. You think I'm stupid? Haha! I probably am. That's hilarious. Life is great."

This is me sober: "Even these beautiful days are heartbreaking, because I don't know what I'm doing. Why do I have so much when others have so little? Why can't I just enjoy my life? You think I'm self-absorbed? Well I am. Maybe that car will hit me and everything will be over."

Let's move on to another equally spastic part of my life, from matters of the liver to matters of the heart. I invited Joe over for a sleepover Thursday night. It was way fun; we played cards for hours with Neighbor and her boyfriend, then watched a movie and snuggled like teenagers on the futon. Joe is a sweetheart and all, but there is something that is off about everything. One is that he isn't a big eater, and I've never been with a guy who doesn't love food. Two is that when I wake up next to him, I just want to get rid of him. The two times he's slept over at my house, I wake up and run away--literally. I go for a jog. Then I come home and make a fatty breakfast, but he doesn't want to eat. This makes me sad, because some of the best mornings of my life were spent fucking and then eating. What is better than laying in bed, sweaty and satisfied and hungry, and talking about the delicious things you are going to fry? Nothing, that's what. Oh yeah, unless you don't like eating. So it is pretty much over between me and sweet, harmless Joe, whose friends I adore.

I made a big fuss over Tyler the other night. Aside from the slapping, I was just trying to be a good hostess because he didn't know anyone else there, and then I just ended up being a spurned ho. I find it terribly amusing, but even more so, horribly embarrassing. On the spectrum of wonderfulness in life, there is hot sex, bacon, eggs, and orange juice on one side, and getting spurned by The Boy at your own house party on the other.

Fortunately, I have no shame, and so when I accompany Neighbor's Boyfriend to yet another BBQ where Mr. Tyler will be present, I will don my vodka cap and continue to pursue this spiteful little boy. Honey, I am the queen of that shit.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

lady doctor says: up here is connected to down there

OK, I don't know if I let on how terribly anxious I was about today's OB/GYN visit. Well, I was. But it turned out okay down there, yet led to an intense line of questioning about what's going on up in my head that is leading to all of these woes. I spent more time answering questions than with my feet in the potholders, and strangely enough I felt more comfortable with her poking around my cervix than poking around in my head.

Questions like these I am okay with:
Are you sexually active?
Do you smoke?
How do you like New York?

Questions like these make me very uncomfortable:
How long have you been smoking?
How much do you drink?

Questions like these make me uncomfortable and concerned:
Have you ever injured yourself or others due to your drinking?
Have you ever tried to quit smoking?
So...you drink every day?
Are you concerned with the amount you drink?

When I remarked that it had been a very thorough questionaire, she said, "Well, I like to get to know more than just your breasts and vagina." Wow, I bet there are so many women who would long to hear that from someone about to stick something in there. Maybe that's the gynecological equivalent to foreplay.

She asked me if I'd ever been pregnant, sexually assaulted (in such a PC, roundabout way that I almost didn't understand the question), and if I wanted help managing my high-risk behavior. I accepted a referral for my insomnia problems, explaining that insomnia, more than alcohol, has prevented me from accomplishing everyday activities. The only thing she didn't ask me about was drugs.

So, I have been going pretty hard for the past two months now, but I don't really see an end to it any time soon. Let's face it; it's summer. This sun, after so much greyness and misery, is literally making me crazy. I don't know how I'm going to handle 22 hours of daylight in Alaska. Back when I made these plans, nothing could sound better than constant sunshine. But really, all that happy may damn well kill me.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Preview: Summer of Love 2008

It is so beautiful outside that I can't stand it. Literally. My spring-induced mania is pretty out of control, so I have locked myself indoors and am cooking up magical warm-weather food for tonight's par-tay.

It has been a blur since getting on the train at 10 p.m. Thursday night in Chicago. I got crazy bruised celebrating Cian's birthday hours after getting off Amtrak. For some reason The Booze gives me The Violence Against Men, and unfortunately for me, I was with boys that hit back that night. I also like to wake up in the morning and send people photos of my injuries, asking for explanations.

Joe had texted and called me while I'd been in The Chi, so we met up for a sleepover party. Although I can't take him seriously, his sweetness is pretty endearing. So are his friends. Saturday I went to Coney Island with him and his buddies and I had a fantastic time being by the ocean, playing frisbee in the sand, and drinking the strongest bloody marys known to man. It was fun being with Joe and having someone to love on, and I'm hoping we can keep it fun and casual for the Summer of Love 2008, and I don't think it'll be too hard since we'll both be traveling around at opposing times. At the same time, I feel so awesome when I'm around him, like a little kid, just goofy and beautiful and happy. There's something right with that, and I don't want to fuck with it. I know that if I let myself, I will just fall crazy in love with him, and that is something, for some reason, that I am trying to avoid.

With the help of my buddy Eric, I had decided not to invite Joe to tonight's party because I think he might be a little clingy and I have other irons in the fire. And----yaaay! Tyler is coming tonight, and I haven't seen him in about a month, so I'm excited. This kid makes me want to slap him more than anyone else; that is another one of my infatuation tells.

Anyhow, I'm so excited and so drunk on life, and I love the summer and I love you.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

serious spring

I am still in Illinois. I extended my trip by four days, partially because I wanted to hang out more, and partially because I wasn't feeling well and wasn't feeling up to getting back on the train. But I am doing better now, and I am getting back on the train tonight. That is yet one more cool thing about the train, I can just decide to stay longer, and it doesn't really cost too much extra. Ah, the luxury of time.

While I spent a few days hanging out in Chicago (staying with my little brother who lives in Lakeview), I also spent a few days hanging out in the 'burbs, which are "pretty" but largely uninspiring. This weeklong, unstructured stint is giving me a heads-up as to what my summer is going to be like...a mix of chilling in a great city, and a mix of feeling worthless. So, to combat this, I've decided to get serious about my writing this summer.

OK, I know I say that every year, the same way I quit smoking every fall, but hey, we just gotta keep trying, right? I'm going to write every day the same way I would go to work every day though, honestly. Seriously, seriously, seriously. This will probably be my last summer to do whatever the fuck I want, and it seems that honestly, if I could do anything, it would be to write.

This renewed motivation feels stronger this year because I had a medical scare earlier this week. I'm really no hypochondriac, but in light of recent and past sexual history, as well as the nature of the problem,I got kind of freaked out and actually went to an urgent care clinic in Chicago. It was kind of a useless visit. It was an unpleasant and expensive way for me to find out that whatever is wrong with me, it's not pregnancy, chlamydia, or gonorrhea. When I get back to The NY I'm going to see a real OB/GYN to take care of some business, and hopefully it won't be too serious. Until then, I just have to put it out of my mind. This is what I get for all of my drunken sluttery...oh wait, and for dating men who cheat on me. I'm not sure which is worse.

I am kind of excited for the train ride back, so I can zone out and think about all the weird shit that has gone on this week, mostly just confrontations with my prolonged adolescence, my mortality, and my obesity (thanks mom). That will probably take up one-twentieth of the time, and the rest will be spent in mild discomfort, and thinking of boys. I have passed along an "Invite Tyler!" APB to my friend, and I have decided not to invite Joe, because of the sex precedence and my current sexual dysfunctioning. My current daydream is to escape with Tyler, move to Atlanta, and not have vaginal cancer. And, like I said, I have 24+ delightful hours on Amtrak to think about all this.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Mom 'n Pop Detox

Live from Illinois, it's Saturday morning. I had a great 30-hour trip from New York to my parents' home, via Amtrak. It was wonderful, although there was a six-hour stretch somewhere in Pennsylvania where I almost regretted getting on the train, but it dissolved as the sun rose. I was sitting in the cafe car, drinking crappy/wonderful coffee, and watching the fields go by with my new friends talking about the book of Revelations...

It was a much, much-needed respite from the three-week bender I've been on. Just when I didn't think things could get much more wanton/drunken/randy, I hung out with Joe again, artfully evading his inquiries about (a) sex stains on my bed that didn't belong to us, (b) breast bruises that did not belong to him, and (c) what I thought about his plan to start a tee-shirt company. Prematurely possessive questions aside, this last one really got to me, because the world needs more snarky tee-shirts just as much as we need more babies, nuclear war, and graphic designers. I wanted to call it our last night together, but it is hard because I really do feel like his body was made just for me, and he left his flask at my place before going out to meet his family for Mother's Day.

I had to hustle him out of my apartment because this Swiss couchsurfer called me from JFK to tell me he was on his way over. I half-heartedly dragged myself around my apartment cleaning up disgusting things and kind of feeling bitter/overextended about sharing my apartment for the third, fourth, night in a row. But he was passed to me by Love Affair and Girlfriend, so I had agreed to let him stay two nights with me.

As soon as I opened the door to let him in, however, I told him he could stay the week with me. He was so fucken adorable! Thank you, Girlfriend! What a delightful Swiss gift! I promised myself I wouldn't sleep with him--it's kind of against the couchsurfing protocol, and he's a bit younger than me--but it wasn't my fault. It really wasn't. I'm only human.

The funniest thing about that whole situation was happened as I was leaving for Penn Station Thursday morning. I was hustling around trying to get my shit together and give him instructions on what to do, whom to call, while he was sat there in his underwear scratching his head, and he asks me, "So...what should I say...when your friends ask about us?" I knew exactly what he was saying, but it was so fun to watch him squirm, so I was like, "What do you mean? Tell them we met on Couchsurfing. Or tell them about Girlfriend and Love Affair. They know what Couchsurfing is." And he's struggling to say the right words in English without being vulgar, "No, I mean...about...not that..."

Hilarity!

So now, after that week of sluttery and drunkening, I am chastely sitting at my parents' house, sporting the patch, and remembering what life in middle America is all about: big houses, big cars, big meals, and big televisions. TV is crazy, man. Me and Little Brother are watching Pretty Woman at one in the afternoon, and there are commercials on for BecomeAnEx.Org, a quit-smoking program. It was a hilarious commercial, by the way. You must check it out.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

sluttery slope

This morning was extremely jarring for me. Not only did my alarm go off at 7 a.m., but when I went to hit it off, I pretty much punched a naked guy in the face, and it wasn't the naked boy in whose bed I recently murdered a chicken.

Why, hello there! What's a naked boy like you doing up here in the Heights?

It comes back to me now that as he was leaving the party last night, this boy said something along the lines of , "Well seriously, it was very nice to meet you. I've heard some nice things about you. And I do hope to see you again," to which I replied something like, "Well, fuck...fuck?" Maybe it was the tequila talking, or the mindset of having my NYCherry recently removed. All hell breaks loose when I don't have to deal with precedence. Or maybe this is what happens when you start out the night talking about your brother's porn stash and the NYCondom ad campaign: Get Some.

Never mind that it's that bloody time of the month or anything. I really wish "they" would come up with a device that would allow you to discreetly take care of that...you know, like a tampon but about eight inches further in. Well, I guess I answered my own question there. Maybe that could be my contribution to feminism/humanity: the tampon with the ten-inch string. The ad campaign would go "Just Bloody Get Some Already" or "Don't Just Go With the Flow" or maybe even something like "Your Blood Should Be Your Business."

Yes, this is what I think about when I'm awake at 7 in the morning on a Saturday.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

staying power

Good morning and welcome to an Early Morning Edition of Serious Business! (Warning: You may want to skip the * paragraph; it is not for the faint of heart.)

I am all dressed up today and ready to power through my last day of school for the semester. I am trying to feel really good about it all, but the truth is that I burned out several weeks ago, and have not really been able to get it up since then. I am really good at going hard out of the gate, but then losing all steam toward the finish line.

Tuesday night, as aforementioned in my blog-between-binges, I decided to go out to see Joe. This was against all better judgment on two levels. On a female level, I just met this guy and it was going to be my third day in a row seeing him, and I am only lukewarm into it. And on an adult level, I had this big fucken deal client presentation Wednesday evening, and I knew that going out Tuesday meant showing up Wednesday being all out of it. I am a delicate person who needs her sleep.

So I went to Williamsburg.

To avoid thinking about all the ways I fuck things up in the eleventh hour, I punished my brain for thinking by drinking heavily. The bars we went to were fun, and my lungs got severely punished at these two bars with glorious smoking patios, Pete's Candy Store and Matchless. Matchless even had a pool table, and two-for-one drinks: glorious!, making it one of the best bars I've yet been to in The NY.

Joe's a sweet guy, and the complete opposite of me in that dangerous way where I know this shit can't go anywhere, but I will damn well sleep with him until I probably fall in love with him, which is precisely how I got started on my three-year relationship with The Ex. We had some pretty sweet sex on the roof of his building, which could only have been better if it had not gone on for so long. Yes, Wandering, I suddenly understand what you mean about drunk sex. You can just go on forever because you're too wasted to blow your load. This kills me.

*Sex the morning after would have been way better had we not turned on the light to survey what looked like the scene of a splatter porn. Bloody hand prints everywhere. This could explain why I was so extremely horny for the past few nights. My uterus wants a baby! My brain, on the other hand, only wants to drink. Thank god my brain is also really into using condoms lately, or we would have a problem.

The shame came last night when, after totally blundering through our client presentation, I was removed from the speaker list at tonight's other Big Fucken Deal show at Rutgers. This makes me feel really bad, and I wish I could just swallow the mistake and get over it...better yet, not even swallow it, but just let it pass over me. So I chose sex and booze over school and doing a good job. I have done this before and it hasn't really bothered me. But it was the group aspect that I had kind of let slip in my mind, and everyone knows that if there's one thing I hate, it's letting other people down. Whether they're Type A classmates with whom I feel little in common, my immigrant parents, or random boys I pick up, I hate disappointing people. That's the frustrated little Asian girl in me.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

so many things

There are so many things I want to write about but I am horrendously drunk for 6 pm on a Tuesday, so we'll start right here and see what happens.

First off, I only 10 percent remember writing that last post about...soup? This is what I write about when I'm drunk? Soup? My Friend and I have a tendency to get unexpectedly drunk together. This is what happened this afternoon. But our newly cemented Friend status makes getting drunk together totally awesome, and we are even considering living together next year
because my Neighbor confirmed that she got into SCAD and is probably taking off late summer.

Exciting, daunting, everything all at once. Cheers to: The Future...!

I had my one and only final exam this morning at 9 a.m. Instead of studying yesterday, I celebrated Cinco de Mayo by eating nothing but "Mexican" food all day, and staying up until 2 in the morning chatting with Girlfriend about the latest development in my junior high love life. Strangely enough, I only had one tequila drink yesterday, on the holiest of holy days for my preferred beverage, and I realize that there are now three things I have to ingest on a regular basis in order to keep my bowels in motion: cigarettes, coffee, and tequila.

Something happened to me Saturday evening, and all of a sudden I needed to have sex. And when I say "need," I mean it in a very comprehensive way, where my body and my mind and the stars all aligned to make sure I got some action. When I left my apartment Saturday night, I knew I wasn't coming home. I was being pulled by some force greater than me to some form of casual encounter, and nothing could stop it, not even Netflix. I even put my overnight kit (i.e., eyedrops and a pack of gum) into my purse as I left.

There were some days that I recall last year in my months of severe drunkening where I just didn't give a flying fuck and although I wasn't particularly happy, I wasn't sad either, and I couldn't stop laughing, which gave me the feeling of light satisfaction. There was one day I remember where I thought I was holding it together at the office pretty well because I was sating myself by holding an unlit cigarette in my mouth, thereby making me less edgy and pleasant despite being quite dry in the head. It wasn't until late afternoon that I had sufficiently rehydrated enough to pee, and when I got into the bathroom, I saw that I had what looked like several day's worth of eye makeup drying on my face. This was also the time that I stopped brushing my hair (which I still don't do, but now it's about a foot shorter so it's harder to tell), and when I attempted to pull it back into some semblance of dignity, I saw that I had dried blood all around one ear. I don't think I was bleeding out of my ear, so its source was unclear to me. In any case, I found this terribly funny, because all day long some people had commented that I looked like shit, and somehow it never occurred to me to go and check it out.

Sunday I was vaguely aware that this might be one of those days, because I found myself vaguely singing and dancing on the subway platform the morning after popping my NYCherry and heading to school for a crucial review session, during which I volunteered to clean the blackboard with my clothing. I have been blessed with an insomnia-free streak for a little while now, and I also have not yet slept out a single night in The NY, so Sunday was a little jarring for me. Also, Sunday, if you remember, was about thirty degrees warmer than it was Saturday, so I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt under a heavy sleeveless item, and I felt fucken ridiculous. So I tried to alter what I was wearing accordingly, then passed out in the sun for a while after indulging in a much needed slice of Koronet pizza.

This is when I got the call that suggested that Tyler, this boy that I'm so incredibly into, might maybe be at this BBQ back from whence I came in Brooklyn that evening. I have many scruples about anything that seems even remotely duplicitous, so I was torn. On the other hand I really wanted to see Tyler and I didn't have time to go home and shower and make it look as though I had chosen to wear the clothes I was wearing. So I did the only thing I could do: I took a paper towel bath in the restroom, asked my unsuspecting friend to smell me for ball stank, and headed back to Brooklyn.

Tyler wasn't there, but it was still a great time, and I was happy to be with such a mellow group of people who never once referenced anything relating to the existing dominant Manhattan paradigm, any struggle with it, or any acknowledgment that that world existed. I was with people who just...were. And this made me incredibly happy. It made me think that here I was, all stressed and worried about trying to be Somebody, without taking the time to realize that I already am Somebody. Right now I'm Somebody who doesn't do what I want, and the world is feel of Somebodies who are always trying to be Somebody Else without just being who they are, and doing what makes them happy.

This brings me back to my exciting Friday night, which consisted of watching Little Miss Sunshine, which made me (a) miss my family and (b) just want to "Do what you love, fuck the rest." I really, really, loved this movie.

Anyhow, I want to write more about this new boy, whom I will also call by his unidentifiable first name, Joe. I went on a hilariously awkward post-sex, sober, daytime date with him yesterday, and some interesting things were revealed to me, things that I couldn't even respond to because I was so sober, and of course self-censorship and BAC are inversely related. I said so little and ate so much (as you can see, my diet and no-drinking phase lasted all of 48 painful hours) that I was surprised to hear from him again last night, and I am now trying to sober up by blogging, napping, and heading back into the night to see him again. He is a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, or something like that, which makes me trust him infinitely more than anyone I've met via craig. And this is why I slept with so many people in San Francisco: there, everyone is separated by a maximum of three degrees. Of course, that's also what made it kind of creepy, and why most people don't advise sleeping with roommates or co-workers.

Foolish? I think so. But it's amazing our capacity for self-distraction when faced with an inordinate amount of work and requirements, either self- or publicly imposed. I react poorly to rules.

Friday, May 2, 2008

drunk soup

It's 3 a.m. and I'm eating soup. Be warned...!

I just got home from many a hour at The School. I am also about eight cocktails to the wind and additionally, about 14 hours into an afternoon with My Friend.

Ever have an afternoon where you're like, "Why Not...?"

Yeah. Welcome to my world.

Anyhow. I am also drunk and, as mentioned, at the point where you're like, "Why shouldn't I make out with my best friend?"

Ah, fuck You. You always give me bad advice. Yeah, I'm talking to You, saturated liver. Ever since I've known You, You've steered me wrong. Fuck You. We have had some good times, though. All right, all is forgiven.

Other than bad drunken advice concerning long-known-acquaintances, I'm feeling pretty good. Tomorrow signals the beginning of my Everyone Else's Weekend, which means My Real Drunkening Realized, and this makes me happy: Step Up. It also means the start of a guilt-inducing weekend of "Why Aren't You Working?!!!"

Eh.

My crush has worn off. This is what happens what you don't see The Object of Your Affection in two weeks. I am a fickle, fickle beast.

I love you all!

kisses,
seriously